Kent State

Guardsmen stirred at their posts, their forms drab and bulky in the early morning mist. Dew stretched white on the Commons, awaiting the sun. On the practice football field, guardsmen sleeping under tents awoke to see the first students of the day: the dishwashers and board jobbers who worked in the university dining halls. They trudged by with hardly a glance at the young soldiers. “Think we’ll get out of here today?” a soldier asked his sergeant. “Man,” the sergeant said, “I hope so.”